


Vanity

by narsus



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied Relationships, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John may not be a genius but he's spent enough time considering the nature of Sherlock's vanity to be able to draw some conclusions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanity

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sherlock belongs to the BBC, Mark Gatiss & Steven Moffat and obviously in the genesis of it all to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock is incredibly vain. For a man who holds nothing but distain for regular norms he has his own vanities that have nothing to do with intellect, and somehow that doesn't surprise John. Every man has his own notions of propriety. John's just happen to coincide with slightly subtler, expectedly male defaults. He keeps himself neat and tidy, dresses modestly and occasionally polishes his shoes. His clothing is a matter of comfortable layers in the casual and professional indistinctness in the workplace. A lack of distinctness is an asset in the medical profession, in any organised profession really. A doctor, a lawyer, a soldier all represent a unit larger than themselves. It helps if they're not quite so individually distinct. His work clothes convey just the right impression. In the hospital he is calm, sympathetic, knowledgeable and helpful. On the battlefield he was cold, silent, quick and efficient. He is a man who can sympathise with a young professional's touch of flu and persuade them out of the placebo of antibiotics just as he previously could make the chilling decision that slim resources would best benefit those with a genuine chance of living. His vanity comes in the form of being capable and he's content with that.

Sherlock's vanity is another thing entirely. That isn't to say that he isn't a brain without a heart, he might be that as well, but he does seem fairly concerned with the housing of his intellect. It was the clothing that John noticed first, not first but as soon as the whirlwind of danger and death had quietened down. Then he'd noticed. He probably has Mycroft to thank for that really because Mycroft wore clothing like a costume and not an expression of self. John's own clothing is camouflage: physical layers or professional mask. Mycroft's is an illusion of stuffy, mundane bureaucracy. Three piece suit, grey or at least light coloured, white shirt, non-collapsible umbrella. The key isn't in the overall impression but in the details: the scarlet handkerchief, the cufflinks with their polished black insets. The pocketwatch is incongruous but it deliberately draws attention away from the genuine details. Mycroft's image is designed to convey harmlessness just as John's is meant to be forgettable.

The image that Sherlock conveys is something else entirely. The slim cut suits, the tailored shirts, even the styling of his hair draw attention to the physical body. John's noticed the tight pull of shirt fabric across Sherlock's chest as he moves, leaving nothing to the imagination. He's noticed how even the simple act of removing suit jacket draws attention to the trousers that cut right in neatly around Sherlock's arse. Even the suit jacket isn't designed to add bulk but rather illustrate the long lines of Sherlock's body. The coat adds bulk but since Sherlock doesn't button it up it doesn't disguise his slenderness and instead frames it. The scarf at least is semi-camouflage: It covers a vulnerable pale throat and probably does, genuinely, keep Sherlock warm. The scarf of course is always removed at opportune moments to expose throat and clavicle, and when it's warranted Sherlock has a tendency to lift his chin to look down his nose a little and expose even more of his pale skin to suitable eyes. Lestrade in particular seems to be the recipient of that gesture most often: Mycroft is never the subject of it.

John isn't the most observant man and in comparison to Sherlock he's a positive fool but he's done his fare share of psychiatric training with its obligatory behavioural observation. He can't tell if someone is lying by the tan lines on their skin or if they've been to Putney by the type of mud on their shoes but he's watched Sherlock often enough to have learnt some of his behavioural patterns. Sherlock likes Lestrade but still likes to assert his intellectual superiority over him in public. He doesn't want his audience to know how highly he regards the inspector but at the same time he wants Lestrade to know of that regard which results in conflicting body language. In fact, when John compares Sherlock's behaviour to past observation it resembles nothing so much as highbrow flirting. Sherlock does in his own way acknowledge Lestrade's dominant position by virtue of station and while he likes to be seen to challenge it he also wants Lestrade to know that he has control over just how far Sherlock goes. One day something might even come of it John supposes, if the way that Lestrade watches Sherlock's mouth is anything to go by.

Sherlock's vanity then lies in the physical or rather his insecurities that allow real vanity to shine through lie in that arena. He isn't particularly vain about his intellect because everything around him confirms it. Nobody _is_ as brilliant as the great Sherlock Holmes. There's no real challenge there except against himself. Likewise when it comes to music while Sherlock plays well and perhaps even magnificently he doesn't use it as a measure of anything. He plays the violin for himself expressing whatever he chooses to. Occasionally he'll play for an audience composed of John or Mycroft separately. For John he plays conventional, bright, spirited tunes that he knows will raise a smile: for Mycroft he plays complicated, elaborate, Gothic pieces that wouldn't be out of place at an eighteenth century funeral. Mostly he plays for himself and when he does there is no measure of anything other than what Sherlock desires to be moved by at the current time. He's at his finest when his playing is careless self-indulgence and though John will never say it, he's quite certain that the Academy lost a great virtuoso to Sherlock's current career.

It's strange really when John considers it, turning the facets over for closer examination. Creatively, intellectually Sherlock is clearly in a superior position and secure in that knowledge but in the physical he is keenly aware of a perceived fragility. In his own way Sherlock attempts to camouflage that insecure vanity, in the cut of his clothes, the tautness of his body, the fine lines of his skin. John realised early on that he ought not to be surprised by the cosmetic touches, by the expensive skin creams, concealing cosmetic tricks, even the eyelash curlers. There is a small container with a dropper for applying tiny doses on Sherlock's dressing table and Google revealed that said small vial was worth a few hundred pounds. It's a skin treatment that Sherlock uses sparingly. There is a small tub of a cream designed specifically to tighten the skin around the eyes John notes, another cream to lift the skin of the face. There's a cosmetic brush-pen _thing_ that John doesn't entirely understand that he's briefly caught glimpses of Sherlock using, daubing it at various points on his face before rubbing in whatever cosmetic application it is. It's another item that Sherlock doesn't use often but tends to make frantic use of if it's rather too late and suddenly there's the sound of Mycroft's car pulling up. The eyelash curlers baffle John entirely and he suspects that with incorrect application they could easily remove an eyeball. Those at least Sherlock only uses before he visits Mycroft which is enough to add credence to John's pet theory that once upon a time, possibly while intoxicated, Mycroft may have called Sherlock beautiful and set in motion an intense paranoia on Sherlock's part about maintaining his looks.

Of course Sherlock doesn't rely on skin treatments and cosmetics alone. Shockingly he actually goes to a gym fairly regularly. Never when John was liable to notice at first but over time that sort of thing had become harder and harder to hide until one day he'd simply taken John with him. Seeing as it's a gym that Sherlock Holmes deigns to be a member of it's nothing like the usual brightly or deliberately dimly lit commercial places that John's use to seeing. From the outside it looks more like a private gentlemen's club and the entrance and hallways are all panelled oak. Once upon a time it probably was a gentlemen's club after all. John had been deposited in a lounge bar replete with leather armchairs and mahogany tables for a few uncomfortable minutes before he'd been moved, probably by virtue of looking so uncomfortable, to a small sort of coffee bar area lit from above by a skylight two floors above. He'd drunk his complimentary coffee and studied the tall, potted palms that made the room look like some sort of stopping point in a nineteenth century Grand Tour. At some point in his pondering the configuration of potted palms, skylight, marble columns and geometric floor designs Sherlock had joined him wearing tracksuit bottoms and a vest, and clutching a small towel. He'd wobbled slightly as he'd walked over and when he'd sat down it had been with a sigh of relief. Weeks later John had discovered that Sherlock's regular exercise routine involved a cardio program that pushed him till he almost couldn't walk and careful use of various weight machines to tone muscle rather than build bulk.

Vanity is a curious thing John reflects. It can turn average men into geniuses and geniuses into neurotics. If Sherlock stopped using all his expensive products tomorrow, if he stopped trying to burn off the last vital traces of body fat and stopped deforming his eyelashes for Mycroft's sake John doesn't think it would make a difference. Mycroft would notice because Mycroft notices these things and Sherlock's gym would probably send him one of those professionally friendly e-mails telling him that he was missed and that if he paid up his next year's subscription in advance they'd throw in a free personal training session, but nothing of importance would change. Sherlock would still be Sherlock: tall, thin, pale skinned and curly haired. Mycroft would still think him beautiful and Lestrade would still admire his looks while being baffled by his mind. Of course what anyone else thinks really has nothing to do with it. Both Mycroft and Lestrade could compliment Sherlock regularly to no effect; it's up to Sherlock whether or not those compliments would be enough. He'd have to believe that there was nothing that needed improving, he'd have to hear it frequently enough from someone he trusted before he started believing that there wasn't a single thing at fault. There's nothing else for it then John decides: he's just going to have to start telling Sherlock that he has a nice arse, preferably when Mycroft and Lestrade are within earshot.

**Author's Note:**

> The Royal Academy of Music is within walking distance of Baker St station and Regent's Park on the other side.  
> 30ml of the famous Crème de la Mer Regenerating Serum retails at £210, 15ml of the Eye Concentrate at £123 and a 250ml tub of the classic face cream at £541. Yves Saint Laurent's Touche Eclat Pour Homme is at least fairly cheap in comparison.


End file.
